Life is a story. There are good parts & there are bad, there are happy chapters & there are sad. Sometimes you hold your breath when the plot thickens and sometimes you sigh when there are long gaps in-between. Every day is like turning the next page, there is the anticipation that this could be the best part. Everyone has a story. This is mine.

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Sunday, April 06, 2008

Frustrations

There are so many things in life that I am thankful for (I could not even list them all). To be honest, I really have been blessed tremendously and don't really have anything to complain about. So don't take this post as a list of complaints but rather a way for me to vent on some things I find somewhat frustrating in my life.

1.) Not being able to get a full night sleep. I 'm not sure when this sleeping problem started. I didn't use to have trouble going to bed (other than needing complete silence and pitch darkness). But these days (the last couple of months actually), I find myself tossing and turning in bed. Most nights, it's just really hard for my mind to settle down. I try to block out thoughts about unfinished projects, looming deadlines, my mental to-do lists, and anything else that will keep my mind active. I've cut down on caffeine and have minimized any stimulating activities right before bed. I tried reading, taking warm baths, hot milk, counting sheep, softer pillows, and even turning the temperature up and down. Nothing has worked except sleeping pills (which makes me even more anxious since I worry about getting hooked). Sometimes even after taking sleeping pills, I do fall asleep only to wake up in the middle of the night and then I can't fall back to sleep - then it's the whole anxiety of not being able to sleep all over again. The worst part is I finally get to sleep soundly just before the alarm starts to ring and the problem now shifts to getting out of bed.

2.) Not being disciplined enough to lose weight. I'm cursed with a slow matabolic rate and a body that is genetically programmed to maintain fat. It's easy to blame my DNA. But admittedly the rest of the problem is I have love to eat and I absolutely abhor exercising. (Would that be something I can blame on my genetic make-up as well?). Some people are lucky. They may have the tendency to become heavy but they like to eat healthy and love to exercise. Or there are others who eat a lot of junk and exercise minimally but have great matabolism. In my case, it's three for three which makes losing weight an uphill battle.

3.) Not having enough time to do everything I want to do ... but really who does?

4.) Not having kids. We consciously waited before working on starting a family. I wanted to be mentally, financially, physically and emotionally stable and ready before we brought kids into our life. Now that we are in a good place, Jojo and I are ready for kids, but we're certainly not at the stage where we are obsessed with becoming parents. We're okay with where we are now . I know that good things come in good time and I am prepared to wait to be blessed with kids. And if it does not happen, I think I can accept that as well. Sometimes what's tougher about not having kids is everyone's expectation that we should have them by now. Does that make sense?

5.) Being at a crossroad in my career. I used to know what I wanted but these days it seems my priorities are changing. I'm not exactly sure what it is I want to do with the rest of my professional life - much less whether this is the right path to getting there. But it's a good job to have and a good place to be for now so I guess I'm kind of taking it one day at a time.

6.) No spiritual growth. Lately my spiritual development is limited to attending mass once a week. And sometimes even that has started to feel obligatory. I miss having that "high" you get after a successful retreat, or after the Days With the Lord, or after those Ateneo Christian Life Community prayer meetings.

7.) I wish I could be involved in something that I truly believed in and felt passionate about. I used to be so active in organizations that helped the less fortunate. I found so much fulfillment in doing that. I used to have a bookclub - but got too busy to read the books on time. I used to be a member of different associations but those kind of fell on the wayside. Lately, my life has become an endless race to get things done that I've lost sight of doing things that go beyond just getting through life.

So there it is. My list of rants. Some of which I aim to try to do something about while othes are beyond my control. That's just the way things are, I guess. Life goes on.

5 comments:

jol
said...

Life can be full of frustrations as only those in heaven are free from them. It is alright to air these rants as bringing them out takes off a load from you. We share the same problem of sleeping and not having enough time to do all that we want. Let us focus more on our strengths!

You can actually hit two birds with one stone on your first 2 frustrations but it takes discipline. You have to excercise. My dream is to run the New York or Boston Marathon before I am too old to do it. Part of my training to condition me physically is to swim 2 kms three times a week. I noticed that I am knocked out by 8 to 9 pm at night despite that fact that I am used to sleeping at 12 am daily. I also lost 15 pounds in the process. You can do the same on a smaller scale but you have to make it part of your lifestyle. Your other frustrations basically is about time and activity. You have to reflect and prioritize the things that are important to you and allocate time accordingly. That way, you will always be aware of what you are giving up and getting all the time so that there will be no regrets or frustrations. Otherwise, you should allocate time for things you might regret not doing.